


The Heart's Filthy Lesson

by Kleenexwoman



Category: Agent Pendergast Series - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BDSM Scene, References to David Bowie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 12:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4138167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kleenexwoman/pseuds/Kleenexwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another universe, Diogenes Pendergast is an experimental artist on the most outré fringe of New York's subcultures, and Aloysius Pendergast is a neurotic recluse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart's Filthy Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVgk7wYeZHw

Manhattan is seething with life, even on a cold and sluggish evening. The expanse of green outside the penthouse window hurts Aloysius's eyes, in the summer. From here, he can't see the gaudy neons of Times Square at night reflected on the snow. The cloudy sky is a burnt orange that might as well not be a color at all. He should be inside his penthouse, where he can sequester himself inside of his Japanese garden, in a place it is always the pure blankness of early spring. 

But he smells blood on the snow, and so he's standing outside of his brother's loft in Greenwich Village on this cold January evening. The air smells like bitter resin, the stench of bilious beer and cheap perfume. He sniffs, frowning. Rotting lilies. No doubt an artificial scent purchased from some huckster in Chinatown, slathered in by the gallon by some desperate drag queen. 

(Diogenes has requested his presence. He has, after all these months, called for his brother. And he's not even answering the doorbell. Aloysius's eyes wander to the nearest bar, a shabby monstrosity plastered with plywood fretwork and rainbow stickers. He could leave Diogenes to his squalor, whatever form it might take, and simply have a drink. He isn't required to be here. He isn't required to be at his brother's beck and call; he could be independent, healthy. He could buy someone a glass of wine. Why not? He could even take them home.) 

The door buzzes tinnily. Aloysius lets himself in, shaking the few flakes of snow from his coat, and tromps upstairs. "I would prefer to not have been kept waiting, Diogenes." 

"Mea culpa, frater. I know how you detest the cold." 

Brick, rough boards, barred arched windows that barely let the light in. The sofas and beds are covered with dirty dropcloths, a makeshift stage set up at one end of the wide, open room. There are stretched canvasses, makeshift tables, and folding chairs scattered staccato. A mess. There is one halfway decent article of furniture in the room, a dark red velvet chaise longue with gilt braiding around the edges. It's hideously ostentatious for Aloysius's tastes, but it does appear to be high quality. 

A young woman is draped over it, one leg dangling over the edge. She has a petite, upturned nose, and that is the one part of her Aloysius can bear to gaze upon. Her hair is purple, arranged around her head in a ragged halo. Her face and body glints with piercings, wrapped in chains. Another young woman stands beside her, spine painfully erect, feet splayed in patent leather. She's pale, prim, face angular and plain, black hair slicked back. Her severe black dress speaks of authority, of control. 

As Aloysius watches, she buries a delicate hand in the other girl's hair and yanks the girl's head back. 

"Perfection, perfection." Diogenes holds a camera, bare feet moving quickly around the girls. He's acquiesced to at least one of Aloysius's requests and begun to wear black suits, Aloysius notices. Except for the shirt--a telltale thatch of bright red hair runs down the length of his chest. Small victories, with Diogenes. 

"Do forgive me, Aly. I promised my dear assistants a treat at the end of the day, as a reward for their labors." He flashes Aloysius a grin, twin hazel eyes glowing in the dull light. "Mistress Constance and her pet." 

"It's Corrie," says the girl with the purple hair. Without changing expression, Mistress Constance smacks her backhanded across the mouth. 

Corrie grins, dark red blood mixing with her black lipstick, smearing across her teeth. "Because only Mistress Constance and Mr. D are allowed to call me pet. And that's only if he doesn't abuse the privilege." 

"Mr. D," Aloysius says faintly. 

"The uneducated slut didn't know who Diogenes of Sinope was when she met me. We had fun with that." Diogenes raises the camera again, moves around Corrie. She lifts her chin and bares the split in her lip, the tip of her tongue gleaming red. "God, it's beautiful. Like rubies." 

"Will you stop this sadistic charade? I came here for you." 

"I do apologize for my brother's impatience. I think it might be time to end the session anyway, don't you?" Diogenes kisses Corrie lightly on the cheek. 

With a swift, practiced movement, Constance is on her knees in front of Corrie. She dabs at the girl's lip with a handkerchief, her expressionless face melting into concern. "I'll put that salve on it when we get home." 

"Sometimes we must endure delays in our so carefully ordered lives for the sake of art." Diogenes drapes a black trench coat around Corrie's shoulders. 

"I hardly think that what you produce here deserves the name," Aloysius says, when the girls have at last gone. 

Diogenes clucks his tongue. "You're so old-fashioned, Aly. And so cruel to your little brother. You didn't even kiss me." 

"I was summoned without preamble or warning to drag myself across town to wait on a relative who, although living less than ten miles away from me, has not spoken to me for months. Pardon me, Diogenes, if I am slightly irritable." 

"I've been thoroughly engrossed in my work. I'm sure you know how it is, Aly. Once you bury yourself in those old books in the library, you almost never come out of them." 

"I'm writing a monograph on the misunderstood history of our family, as I have for the past ten years. As you would know if you'd ever bothered to call upon me." 

"The past is past, frater. Don't you ever wish to build the future?" Diogenes turned away from his brother, a flippant hand dismissing centuries of history. 

"I only want to clear our family name." Aloysius followed him. "To return home for more than just a visit, Diogenes, don't you want that? To live in peace in our ancestral home?" 

"It's full of black mold." 

"Your loft is hardly better." 

"Do you intend to lob insults at me the entire night or do you have any interest at all in what I've called you here for?" Diogenes turned towards Aloysius, his hands on his hips. "We both get lost in our work, let's agree on that. But can't we come together to celebrate a triumph?" 

Aloysius sighed. Some heat source in the building seemed to have turned itself off, and he was getting chillier by the moment. He wrapped his thick alpaca coat around himself. "Very well, Diogenes. What do you have to show me?" 

Diogenes crooked his finger, a smile appearing on his blood-red lips. Aloysius had never liked looking at his brother's mouth. Something about it seemed unpleasant, unnatural. "Come now, frater, and see what pretty things I've made." 

Aloysius had barely noticed the white curtain that hung over part of the room until now. Diogenes led him to it, pushing aside the white curtain just a sliver. Without realizing what he did, Aloysius grabbed his brother's arm. 

"Are you scared?" Diogenes teased. "Come on, frater. Just take a peek." 

"I'm just--" Aloysius shook his head, wondering why the sudden certainty that whatever was behind the curtain was dangerous, unthinkable, had settled over him. Diogenes had always been a bit bohemian, deliberately outre, but he had never shocked Aloysius to the point of fear. "Go on, Diogenes." 

Diogenes pulled the curtain aside with a flourish. "Behold the latest exhibit to grace the Ramona A. Stone Soho gallery." 

"My God," Aloysius breathed. It was a strange, rough tableau made out of wooden dummies, bits of pointed trash, and clothes clearly scavenged from the most wretched thrift shop in Queens. The very awkwardness of the arrangements seemed to obscure, for but a few seconds, the nature of what it was depicting--horrible murders, tortures, all full of soaked rags and shredded Coca-Cola cans to symbolize gore. 

Hooded figures, Hefty garbage bags obscuring their nonexistent faces, stood around an altar formed from an old air-conditioning unit. A baby doll with one arm and most of its hair missing lay on the blocky machine. 

Fanta can flames spiraled upward from an elaborate doll's house, lace nailed sloppily to the outside as if to imitate gingerbread molding. Full-sized dummies lay around it, their faces charred. 

A dummy in a tattered black suit lay face-forward, a carving knife plunged through his back. Three other dummies in identical suits bent around him, fingerless hands crooked up to touch featureless faces. The dummies still alive might have been contemplating a group murder, exclaiming in dismay at the sight, or mourning their loss--it was impossible to tell. 

Here and there sat solo tableaux of self-extermination. A small boy in short pants held a revolver up to his head, other hand flailing in curiosity, or perhaps in torment. A girl in a long black nightgown held a knife to her wrist. A naked dummy hung suspended from its neck, a Tarot card of the Hanged Man nailed to his face. 

"It's ghastly. It's morbid. My god, Diogenes, what have you made?" Aloysius touched the face of the dummy closest to him, a cop spread-eagled against nothing, bent backwards in the act of cracking in half, a rusted heart of bent metal sawed painfully into jagged halves. 

"Exorcising some demons." Diogenes's wiry, rough hand slid over Aloysius's slim, soft hand. "Getting rid of some nightmares." 

Aloysius drew his hand back. "I don't wish to see your nightmares. It isn't art, Diogenes. If your therapist suggested you create representations of whatever demons plague your soul, at least have the grace not to inflict it on the public." 

"I should have known you wouldn't care." Diogenes pushed Aloysius back from the dummies, roughly pulled the white curtain out again. "You never did, not once you came home from the hospital." 

"I was ill. Scarlet fever. You can hardly blame a common childhood disease for my maturation." 

Diogenes laughed bitterly. "Scarlet fever--lies, lies. I saw it, Aloysius, remember?" 

Aloysius shook his head. He could never remember any of the time he was supposed to have spent in the hospital--only a feeling of pressure, in the weeks before, slowly building up inside his head. His thoughts would race in one direction, building up speed until he could almost feel them whirring behind his eyes. Shadows made him jump, coiled up an unmoving spring of energy in his stomach. His hands shook, and he felt too small for his own skin. 

That had been years ago. He was older now, not given to the fits and starts of hormonal emotion as he had been then. But his hands began to shake all the same. 

"I was ill, Diogenes. I almost died." 

"It wasn't scarlet fever." Diogenes's upper lip curled up disgust. "Keep pretending to yourself, dear brother. I've faced my madness--maybe you would do better to face yours." 

Aloysius's hands ball into angry fists. His heart is beating faster, his breath coming short. He closes his eyes and imagines himself out of his brother's hell-garden. He is in the monastery in Tibet, the taste of green tea grassy and fresh on his tongue, body swathed in the smooth nothingness of orange silk. He is breathing pure air and gazing upon a field of snow. In the distance, there are bells. When he opens his eyes again upon the dust and squalor of his brother's loft, he is once again calm. 

"It's not madness. It's merely a sensory processing problem," he insists. "And you are not 'mad,' as you so romantically put it--you're spoiled, indulged, and deliberately seeking out the morbid and outre for the attention." 

"You have no idea," Diogenes snarls. He reaches forward and pushes his brother, slim hands producing more surprise than force. Aloysius stumbles backwards, nearly tripping on the outstretched, amputated arm of a mannequin. "You have no idea what I've seen, Aloysius. What horrible, horrible visions plague me." He shakes his head. "I see death at every moment. Worse than that--I *foresee* it. Do you know what that's like, frater? To look at a living, breathing, healthy human being and see their bloody carcass?" 

"You're disgusting." Aloysius's head is spinning. His lungs are filled with jagged glass. "You're delusional." 

"It's not my imagination. It's not my desire. I saw the manor burn." Diogenes presses him against the wall. Cold brick presses rough against Aloysius's back. "I saw mother and father die. I saw their faces stretch in horror and I saw steam coming from their nostrils. I saw their lips crack and blacken." Aloysius can feel his brother's breath warm against his neck, the clamminess of his skin through the fabric of Aloysius's thin shirt. Diogenes has always been more solidly built than him, wiry rather than slim, hard rather than delicate. Aloysius's stomach begins to churn with something other than fear, now. "And I saw it..." Diogenes bends his head, whispering warmth into Aloysius's ear, the tip of his pink tongue touching the shell of his ear. "I saw it the night before it happened." 

Aloysius stares helplessly above Diogenes's shoulder, gazing at the mannequins, searching for something familiar in them. How did he not see it before? The doll's house is not a perfect replica of the house in which he and Diogenes spent their childhood, but it is far too close to be a mere coincidence. The fire-black mannequins in his line of sight resemble nobody so much as his parents, his mother's favorite blue dress scorched by fire and holes eaten in his father's elaborate tuxedo coat. Their faces are charred, unrecognizable. 

With a gasp, Aloysius shoves his brother away. "Why would you remind me of that catastrophe?" 

"You're the one looking to our past," Diogenes reminds him. 

"I want to preserve it. Restore it. Not use it for some kind of macabre crime against the whole of art itself." Aloysius shakes his head, struggling to hold back the tears in his eyes. "This is an affront." 

"I should have known you wouldn't understand." Diogenes turns his back. "You never did. Always wanting to keep things inside, to put on a good front for the sake of propriety. But our problems didn't go away, did they?" 

"Putting your diseased delusions on display for the world to ogle will make no improvement in our station in life. It's clear that you simply don't care." 

"It's always about the image with you, isn't it, Aly? What will the neighbors think." Diogenes curls his lip. "What will the rabble think. Well, frater, what do *you* think?" He steps closer to Aloysius, reaching out one hand. The back of his finger grazes against Aloysius's cheek, wiping up the single tear trickling over his skin. Diogenes brings his finger to his pink lips, which part as he tastes the saltwater. He grins. "I know it made you feel something." 

"Disgust. Only disgust." Aloysius leaves, slamming the door behind him. He hurries down the stairs and out into the night. 

He closes his eyes on the ride home to his penthouse in the Dakota, desperately trying to shut out the noise and squalor of the city. The streets are only slightly muffled by the new-fallen snow, the pristine white of the drifts turning into muddy, grey-black slush nearly as soon as they hit the streets. This city blackens everything, he thinks, turns everything that was pure and good to sleazy, filthy horror. Was Diogenes corrupted? Or is he the corrupter? Did New York change him, channel his impulses into something darker than they would have been, or did the society of the city just give him new ways to spread his rot? 

He refuses to think of his brother's red hair, of his jewel-like eyes, of his inviting lips. He cannot think of those rough artist's hands, of his own slim white hands running across that errant, uncovered thatch of hair on his chest. He cannot think of his brother. 

But in the end, a single image lingers on his eyes. A mannequin with pale hair, painted-on blue eyes, wearing a perfectly pressed black suit and tie. He is holding a gun to his own head, mouth cracked open in a wooden scream. 

It is memory, or it is prophecy. He dares not ask.


End file.
